In recent years attention has been given to chairs and multiple-seat units that are particularly intended for environments in which they may be given very rough treatment. College and university dormitories and lounges have particular need for such sturdy seating units, but there is also a need for them in hotel and motel rooms and lobbies, in institutions for emotionally disturbed or mentally impaired persons, and in air terminal waiting areas and similar public places. They may also be desired for some private domestic uses, as for furnishing household rumpus rooms.
Such a seating unit should have upholstered seat and back cushions, for the sake of comfort and attractive appearance, but it must nevertheless be capable of sustaining hard use--and even abuse and vandalism--without requiring repairs that are costly. To this end, seating units of the type here under consideration are made with very sturdy supporting frames and with reversible cushions. When the seat cushion of such a chair becomes dirty or worn, it is removed and reinstalled upside down, to double its effective life. The back cushion is similarly reversible front-to-rear. The covering on each cushion may be formed to be readily removable so that when both sides of a cushion have become unpresentable, it can be removed from the supporting frame and a new covering can be quickly installed on it.
One commercially available chair intended for hard-usage situations has its reversible cushions supported by L-shaped rails or ridges on opposite sides of its supporting frame, each projecting inwardly from an upright side frame member. Each rail has a forwardly extending portion for the seat cushion and an upwardly extending portion for the back cushion. A sturdy inner frame for each cushion has grooves in its opposite sides that receive the rail portions with which the cushion cooperates. Each of the cushions is freely slidable through some distance away from its normal position, unitl it engages a releasable stop that confines it against complete removal from the supporting frame. For reversal of the cushions, the back cushion is first slid upward along its rail portions sufficiently to permit access to a stop release actuator on its bottom face. Use of a special tool on the actuator disables the stop and allows the back cushion to be completely removed from the main frame. The seat cushion is then removed forward from its normal position to permit access to a stop release actuator on its rear face, and the actuating tool is similarly used to allow the seat cushion to be drawn all the way forward off of the main frame. The special tool must again be used on each cushion when it is reinstalled on the main frame.
In order to allow the rails on the main frame to engage in the grooves in each cushion frame without interference from the covering on the cushion, the covering has elongated edge portions extending along each groove, spaced to opposite sides of the groove. These edge portions are detachably secured to the cushion frame by means of Velcro or the like.
Although possessing obvious merits and advantages, this prior seating unit also has certain disadvantages and deficiencies, some of which are not immediately apparent but are nevertheless of major significance to those concerned with the purpose and maintenance of furniture of the type under consideration. The fact that each of the cushions is freely movable through a perceptible distance to and from its normal position offers a certain amount of temptation for attempts at unauthorized complete removal of the cushions wherein brute force may be employed in an effort to defeat the stops that are normally released by the special tool. The nature of the rail connections between the main frame and the cushions gives rise to other disadvantages. The arrangement is not well suited for embodiment in multiple-seat units because there is no way to support the side of a cushion that is not adjacent to an upright frame member. The rail connections create the need for slots in the side portions of each cushion cover and thus tend to increase the cost of cutting and sewing the covers. To conceal these slots in the cushion covers, the upright side frame members can have no openings in them, and the seating unit therefore tends to have a somewhat blocky and heavy appearance. In addition, the edge portions of the seat cushion cover that extend along the slots in its frame can be peeled away rather easily and inconspicuously by an occupant of the chair, thus opening the cover for insertion of small packets of contraband or wads of chewing gum or other nuisance articles.